Chương 61: Day Sixty-One

Dear Diary, Okay, today got a little weird. Yeah, after this past week, today got a little weird. Okay, that's less wrong than I usually am. The past week was a complete train wreck involving two freight trains, six semis, an air liner, and a random cargo ship, all filled to overflow with weird. Today? a little weird. So it started as a Bad Friday.

I know, weird concept, but when I stumbled out of my room having gotten exactly zero shut eye, all but my left arm good-sore, my left arm doing its now-normal give me shit about everything for me doing completely unacceptable things like 'existing', and my body clamoring for food, water, sleep, and pretty much everything I wouldn't be getting between breakfast and lunch.

I hit breakfast like a young woman on a crusade to champion the cause of the hungry, the starving, the thirsty in a world of eggs who spice above the laws of physics. I nommed hard, to the point where the Barbie Brigade was pointing and laughing, the Maids had a new tray coming out while they carried the old one off, and at one point Angel stopped eating and laughing long enough to say 'leave some eggs for the rest of the city, Diaz' before going back to laughing and eating.

Hunger blunted, but in no way sated, I ambled off to Remedial Celtic, picking up Lyman on the way. I twigged to something wrong right away. Normally he's kind of chummy with me as Lyman, hovering almost in touching distance, leaning around me and putting his hand around mine to guide me through a new word. Today? Wouldn't look at me. Kept the kind of distance between us that even Amish would approve of. Put little glowing 'drag pen here' lines on the paper where the next bit ought to go.

After a couple hours of that, Sister Cheryl came past and said, "aw. I hope you two patch things up. Don't let it hurt your progress, Cadet Diaz; you've been making slow but steady progress since he started working with you." After she'd gone back to working with the other students, I leaned forward to where he sat across the desk from me and quietly said, "Loki, I need you to answer an important question for me." He perked up a little at that.

"It's not Monday, but of course, Tabitha."

"What the fuck?" His mouth half curled up into something that might charitably be identified as a smile.

"I'm not allowed to be pensive?" I kept my voice low, despite wanting to snark full volume at him.

"That's an evasion. I ask again. What the fuck?"

"Nothing that need concern you at this time, Tabitha."

"That's another. I ask you a third time, Loki son of Laufey, What. The. Fuck?" He sighed, then spoke in a quiet monotone I had to lean forward and strain to hear.

"You have inadvertently assisted me in restoring my relationship with Sigyn, while also convincing her that you are a threat to that relationship. We will deal with that Monday, hopefully without you and Sigyn coming to blows."

"C'mon, Boss. I'm a lean, mean, relationship fixing machine now!" He chuckle-snorted, then looked at me, suddenly serious.

"Tabitha, should you steal Sigyn from me, I will disavow you. You... Are worth much to me. But not that." I lay my left hand on his, ignoring my fucking useless hand as it tore itself to pieces, grabbing his wrist and refusing to let go when he tried to jerk away.

"Boss? All you had to say is that she's important to you. I'll do anything I can to help you. Except give up Saffron or Marie. Which ought to tell you how much I understand, and how hard I'll try, and why." He just blinked at me. I swear I saw his eyes glisten a moment before he turned back to the page.

"Yes, well. We need to at the very least enable you to write 'Saffron' before the end of today's class, then, no?" After class Saffron met me at Lunch, and we ate and griped our way through some really awful Shoe Leather Beef before she followed me over to the entrance to the Dorm, where Doc Roberts met us shortly after we returned from fetching supplies from my room. Saffron said no hanky panky. Sad Tabitha noises.

On the other hand, she said she wanted to watch what the 'repair expert' for the Filtration Ward Enchantment taught me. Doc Roberts met us there, interrupting us mid canoodle by clearing their throat as they walked up.

"Excellent to see you on time and ready to take this seriously, Tabitha! Well, more on time than me," they had the grace to look a little abashed at their own tardiness. Then they clapped their hands together, all business.

"You even brought along another pair of hands to help! Now, what do you girls know about Enchantments?"

"I guess they use Mana?" Saffron snorted and slapped my hand away from where I'd been fondling her ass since our interrupted canoodle. My left hand. It exploded into tiny burning shards, almost making me miss her showing off her brain that was bigger than she was, including her brain.

"They are Mana tied into a permanent form, available for use or automatically applied to anyone who activates them or enters an area they monitor. As Mana is an energy flow, produced by living things, they must have some way to store, generate, or acquire Mana. Historically, this has included Mana Batteries, greenhouses, Souls, slaves, and Ley Lines.

Ley lines are the preferred source where they can be accessed, since they are a source of near limitless power," Saffron paused, dropping her Lecture Voice, "not to mention being way less evil than some of that other shit."

"Well summarized! You remembered that lecture?" She just stared at them and shrugged.

"So, were we creating a new Enchantment, we would simply have to find a way to power it, create a physical anchor for the Shape and its connection to power, and then create the Shape. Since we're repairing a damaged Enchantment, the first thing we must do is to examine the area carefully for whatever remnants exist of the previous Enchantment." They frowned.

"Since you cannot for whatever reason see Mana, I will need to complete that portion, although Saffron should be able to assist me?"

"Certainly, Doctor. Was the Enchantment powered by a Ley Line connection?" she asked. They nodded.

"So be very careful with any remnants of the Enchantment; if they are still connected to the Ley Line, they will have enormous amounts of Mana looking for a route to ground itself out." You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Understood, Doctor." The two of them spent fifteen very boring minutes scouring the area around the entrance to the Dorm. When they didn't find shit, we all went up to the second floor to repeat the process, with me playing pack mule for all the Enchanting supplies. Nothing on the second floor, so we went up to the third, and so on. By the time we hit the steps up to the roof above the seventh floor, which I hadn't previously realized existed, Doc didn't look good.

He and Saffron discussed it while we made our way up the narrow, steep roof access steps.

"It's uncanny. Tabitha interacted with the Enchantment on the first floor. There should have been some fragments there. We definitely should have found something by now, but its almost as if rather than destroying the Enchantment, Tabitha somehow disconnected it from its power source and it faded. That shouldn't be possible." Saffron just shrugged.

"No disrespect at all intended, but it seems you're overlooking the obvious." To their credit, Doc just shook their head and said, "Don't keep it secret, Saffron." She just waved one hand at me, and Doc laughed as they swung the roof access door open. A full, closed eyes, belly laugh kind of thing. We followed her out, I scanned the roof, the only thing showing up immediately an art deco copper spiral, maybe four feet of tightly coiled inch-thick shiny new copper.

Doc's laugh cut off the second they saw that, then choked as they tilted their head back to scan the sky above the copper coil.

"Gods preserve us," they whispered. I scanned the roof, then the sky above us, trying to find the threat. Other than some really weird sun glare making it hard to look at a few broad swathes of sky? Nothing at all. I stared at those weird glare spots for a moment or two each, trying to spot anything hiding in the glare.

The one running southeast to northwest, that passed over the Practice Yard at its closest point to us was pretty even and looked almost like a really lame, non-curvy northern lights washed out by the sun. The one running southwest to northeast, that kinda ran straight over us to cross under the other one at right angles above the Yard? It looked similar in the distance, but right above us, for maybe forty feet or so? it looked different.

Turbulent, like a jet had passed through and it hadn't recovered yet or something. After really giving that whole area my best hairy eyeball, I turned to Saffron, getting more agitated by the moment.

"Where's the danger?" She'd been staring up at the sky herself, more curious than frightened, but she looked back down at me, her smile taking the edge off of her 'What The Fuck, Diaz?' look. When she snorted a chuckle, Doc's gaze snapped to her, then dragged itself over to me as if pulled by a winch. They shuffled backward, almost unaware they'd done so, and kept doing it.

"What... What are you?" The moment before, we'd been clueless Tabitha (pretty normal), terrified Doc (worrying), and amused Saffron (yay). Now Saffron stepped over in front of Doc and, I shit you not, pulled her hand back, twisted her waist, and full on bitch slapped them with the back of her hand, spinning them around before knocking them on their ass. She stepped forward and, still furious, held a hand down to help them up.

"Doctor Roberts, it is my strong suggestion we both report that as my attempt to shake you from a panicked fugue state, as otherwise I will immediately demand satisfaction from you in the Practice Yard at your earliest convenience." That got Doc's attention. They stared at Saffron for a bit before saying, "Wha... No. Why?"

"She is my boon companion, my lover, godmother to my daughter," she paused a beat before continuing, "my friend, and confidant. More importantly, though, for your own decisions in the next few moments, she is your student. One you have repeatedly claimed to be your favorite, one you said not four days ago reminded you of yourself if you were a better person. One you literally faced down a God to protect."

She closed her eyes, huffed out her rage and incipient mayhem, and opened her eyes again, smiling at them sorta playfully.

"Now, were you lying about all that, or did you just have a sudden bout of stupid due to the lack of the virtue our Tabitha has in abundance?" Through all of that, I watched Doc's face crumble. By the time Saffron closed her eyes, tears ran from theirs. When she stopped talking, Doc choked out, "a moment, please," and bowed their head to their knees, sheltering their head with their arms, and sobbed.

After an endless minute or two they shook themselves, reached up to grab Saffron's hand to help them to their feet, and bowed to her at the waist until their body went below the horizontal.

"From the depths of my Soul, thank you." They stood, turned to me, and said, "please, Tabitha, forgive me. My..." they shook their head.

"Reasons don't matter. I wronged you. Please, I beg you, forgive me." I stared at the crazy Folgers Crystals that replaced my Doc a bit, then shook myself and said, "yeah, okay, whatever, no harm done, but on one," I lifted my pointer finger in the air for emphasis.

"Condition." Without a second thought Doc said, "name it." I dropped my pack of supplies, shook my head, and said, "would someone please tell me what the fuck is wrong, and if I need to get ready to kick something's ass or get you both to safety?" Doc choked on their own spit at that, stuttering and waving their hands about. After a moment, I caught a general pattern of waving and pointing to their hand motions, indicating the tiny spot of turbulent glare in the streak above us.

After maybe thirty seconds of stuttering, whining, and disbelieving Doc sounds, they took a deep breath and all a single wheeze forced out, "you broke the Ley Line."

"Ah, shit." After a second, I got really excited and asked, "wait, no, does the school, no, does anybody own the Ley Line?" Doc blinked, Scholar Brain finally rebooting.

"I suppose The Dagda and a few others lay claim to them, but I'm not sure that really qualifies as ownership."

"Sweet! If nobody owns them, they're not property, so I didn't destroy any property! Tabitha's Innocent! Court Martial Win!" Saffron just shook her head, "too late, Goofus Maximus. You've already plead guilty and been sentenced."

"Don't I get an appeal?" She gave me a look, turned to face me and raised one finger to her lips in what could have been a speculative gesture, but I recognized immediately as a 'shut the fuck up' signal.

"A what?"

"So I still gotta fix it?"

"More or less, yeah."

"Shit."

"And you've still got to get the Enchantment working."

"Fuckity shitballs on fucktoast."

"We might as well get started then." Doc clapped their hands together.

"Yes! Let's get to it!" It turned out the copper was supposed to be a single long straight rod that ran from the Ley Line above us down to the basement, connecting to other various Enchantments and Mana Conduits along the way. Unfortunately the long, straight, barely bigger than the rod hole looked like someone had powerfucked it with a rotary attachment.

It screwed out pretty easy, for a value of 'pretty easy' that wound up with us calling fucking Carruthers of all people up to help us lift the big motherfucking hunk of twisted copper. Brain of stone, muscles of steel, twice as strong as ox, half as smart. For what it's worth, apparently most of his bad attitude related to feeling kinda mocked for being in Remedial Damn Near Everything.

When we gave him something he could do, something where he could even show off whatever ridonkulous double digit Strength score he was rocking? Nicest guy you'd ever want to meet. Like, almost Kronk-Ultra-Himbo nice. Saffron still nixed my suggestion to invite him back to my room for a private reward for his labors, but we both gave him a big old hug after he spent most of the afternoon literally uncoiling the inch-thick copper with his bare hands. Bear Hands. Whatever. Best part of the afternoon?

The look on Doc's face when, after they broached the topic of boring a new hole for the newly straightened Conduit? Saffron yanked me over to stand above the old hole, took a moment to line herself up, held out her right hand and just said, "Stabilize, keep it coming," and, when I complied, because I Am Best Girlfriend so of course I did, Mana Bladed a fucking laser straight one inch hole all the way down to the basement. Priceless.

Carruthers up and dropping the copper down the smoking hole earned him another hug, especially since Doc decided to fuck off and get drunk at that point, leaving Saffron and I an entire hour before dinner to see, at my suggestion, if she could get 'Advanced Canoodling' as a Skill. NO, I do not want to know if the freaky smart bitch actually got it. Leave me some tiny mote of self-respect, okay?